


Healing

by TricksterNag1to



Series: Chainsmokers AU [12]
Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: AU - No Despair, Chainsmokers AU, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Kirigiri, Intersex Character, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, This is just Chihiro and Kirigiri talking about Taichi, Trans Character, Trans girl Mondo, We do not demonize Mondo we love her even if she does bad things sometimes, nonbinary chihiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9251960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TricksterNag1to/pseuds/TricksterNag1to
Summary: Fujisaki and Kirigiri take some time to come to terms with the death of a loved one and the betrayal of another.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trans-Totoro](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Trans-Totoro).



Chihiro Fujisaki cries.

 

Head buried in the leather jacket of their best friend, small fingers fisted in cold sleeves, they spend hours, days like this in the on-campus housing Kirigiri shares with her partners. The couch the two sit on is poor quality, probably the cheapest thing the university could get away with supplying in the way of furniture, a little rickety and made of a stiff, unyielding beige fabric. It’s covered in stains - red wine, chocolate, ink, and what might be spaghetti sauce - but it’s familiar to Fujisaki, and familiar is good. 

 

Kirigiri’s embrace is familiar, too. Fujisaki can feel their heartbeat pick up and then slow whenever she wraps her arms around them, pulls them into her chest, and they can feel how steady her own pulse is and try to time their breathing to hers. She’s always so calm, so brave. Fujisaki has no idea how she does it. 

 

Usually they sit in silence for hours, Fujisaki weeping into Kirigiri’s button-down and leaving it plastered to her chest, and she’ll pat their trembling back with cool leather gloves and run her fingers through their hair until they pull away, sniffling but smiling very gently. 

 

Today is different.

 

Today, when they extract their head from her chest, she looks down at them and smiles. Her covered finger slides under their chin, locking their eyes, and she smiles, big and beautiful like Fujisaki has never really seen before. She tips their head down and presses that big beautiful smile to the exposed skin of their forehead, a quick kiss, before she lets them go and brushes their bangs out of their eyes. 

 

“Fujisaki-chi,” she murmurs, “do you feel better?”

 

They shiver a little bit as they ponder how to answer the question. Crying helps, sometimes. Papa always told them it was okay to cry. But sometimes crying reminds them that they’re weak, that they’re not as dependable as the people who can keep it together even when things are terrible, the people like Naegi-kun, who can smile and hope and hug it all better. 

 

Their papa was one of those people. He was the best man Fujisaki ever knew, better than anybody in the entire world. Who else could light up an entire universe with their smile? Who else could calm a panic attack with one word? 

 

Nobody, that’s who.

 

Taichi Fujisaki was gone, and nobody could replace him. He was stuck on the side of that road where  _ her _ brother hit him, where  _ she  _ told Fujisaki he deserved it. 

 

They hate her, they think. 

 

“I….. I m-m-miss him,” they say simply, their lip quivering. 

 

Kirigiri says something they don’t hear because they’re too busy thinking about what they had just thought. They don’t want to waste any time on hatred.  _ She  _ didn’t kill him. She probably wanted to defend her brother. That’s right. She loves her family just as much as Fujisaki did. She’s worried about her brother. Fujisaki would be worried about their papa too, if they’d switched spots. She just… did a bad thing, right? 

 

But if she did something bad, Fujisaki is supposed to not like her, right?

 

But she also did good things. So Fujisaki  _ is _ supposed to like her?

 

“I’m confused,” they add.  

 

Kirigiri looks at them for a long moment before nodding and standing up slowly, brushing her long hair off of her shoulders. “Would you like to talk about it over something to drink?” she asks. “You like chamomile tea, right?”

 

They nod and she floats off to the kitchen, flowing hair and clicking heels, and Fujisaki watches her go, wondering how she can move like her body is incorporeal. If they didn’t know her, they’d think she was really a ghost. There’s a flick of her hair as she disappears to the left of the open doorway, and then she’s gone without a trace.

 

Fujisaki waits while she puts the water on, kicking their heels against the couch and cracking their knuckles to calm themselves down. Their papa always used to say they were born nervous, always shaking or moving to keep quiet. He would pet their head and kiss the top of it, where their hair parted into a million different directions and locks and points, and tell them he would always be there for them when they needed him. 

 

Just as they’re getting lost in memories, Kirigiri comes back, looking regal and stoic even though Fujisaki knows she’s soft and warm, the girl who would play detectives with them when they were children, the boy who helped them figure out what “intersex” and “nonbinary” were, who arranged for them to see an endocrinologist, who gave them one of his spare binders because he didn’t need them and Fujisaki didn’t seem to like their chest. A girl today, she isn’t binding, but Fujisaki knows there are a few hanging up in her closet for when she gets a masculine gender shift and wants to present differently and use different pronouns.

 

She stands over the threshold with a mug of steaming tea and a plate of apple bunnies, and when she notices Fujisaki noticing her, she gives them a smile and walks over and sets everything down on the coffee table. They bring the mug to their lips and blow softly.

 

“Tell me as much as you’d like about why you’re confused.”

 

So Fujisaki tells her everything. They love Mondo, Mondo is -  _ was _ \- their girlfriend, and she was good to them, she was never mean or did anything bad or touched them in a way they didn’t like. She brought them to the movies or the museum or the Build-A-Bear half an hour away to make stuffed animals of all their friends to give them on their birthdays and she bought them ice cream and held their hand and kissed their cheeks so  _ why would she say something so mean about Papa _ ? Do they hate her? Do they miss her?

 

Do they just miss their father?   
  


Kirigiri listens to everything, and Fujisaki has never been more grateful as they nibble on their snack in between thoughts. She sits, head cocked to the side inquisitively, hands in her lap, really  _ listening _ to every word they say. Mondo didn’t do that so much. But that was okay, that just wasn’t her thing! Fujisaki never expected that from her. That’s why they have Kirigiri, right?

 

Once all the apple bunnies are gone, they fall silent, thinking over everything. 

 

They’re losing everything, aren’t they? 

 

When they voice this to Kirigiri, she hums as she contemplates. It’s tuneless, a flat note that stops and starts abruptly as she tries to come up with a suitable answer. Fujisaki knows emotions aren’t exactly her strong point - she likes to explain things, she likes to figure things out, but she doesn’t really let herself experience her feelings enough to feel confident about this stuff. It’s all the more reason they’re so grateful she’s doing this for them.

 

Eventually, the hum cuts off and she clears her throat.

 

“In my experience,” she begins slowly, “all outside things are temporary. You are the only constant in your life. People come and go, things break or deteriorate or just get lost…. And for some people, that’s disheartening, but I think it’s comforting somehow. Things don’t last forever, so when they leave, you know that for whatever reason, it was inevitable. It’s just come sooner rather than later, and you’re not ready.”   
  


Fujisaki frowns, but she’s not done talking.

 

“Of course, you’ll never be ready when the leaving happens. I don’t think there’s anything that can prepare you for that,” she continues. “You can be sad. It’s perfectly alright to be sad. You can be angry, you can be resentful, you can be numb. The heart is powerful - it feels what it wants and you can’t do much about it. But when someone passes, or leaves in some other way, that doesn’t erase everything wonderful that they did, or that you did with them. Your father was a wonderful parent, not just to you. I considered him a father as well, especially in the years following the departure of my own. He was a good man.” 

 

Fujisaki nods and sniffs back a little bit of snot. “Y-yeah, he was.” 

 

“And was Oowada good to you?”

 

“Y-yeah! Sh-she was really nice….” 

 

Kirigiri takes their hand in her gloved one. “If she was good to you, you’re allowed to remember the good things, even if your relationship didn’t end well. You can feel however you want to feel about her - you can miss her, love her, resent her, despise her - but you’re always allowed to look back on those memories without forcing yourself to view them the way you view her now. That’s something I learned from my father.” 

 

“I-I didn’t know M-Mister Kirigiri was so smart!” Fujisaki exclaims.

 

Kirigiri smiles, tight-lipped. “He’s not.” 

 

“Oh.”

 

Her smile becomes more genuine and a little sympathetic as she smoothes her thumb over the back of her friend’s hand. “But what I’m saying is, we always have memories, even if the physical doesn’t last as long as we want it to. People don’t live forever. Relationships don’t last your entire life. But as long as your memory lasts, you’ll keep them with you, however you interpret them. And, you know, you can hate what someone did to you without hating all of them. Or, if you’d like, you  _ can _ hate her while still understanding her reasons. What she said to you wasn’t okay, even if she was worried about her brother’s future. You’re both hurting for different reasons, but her hurt is not more important than yours.” After she finishes, she takes a deep breath, as if she’d gone through her entire speech without breathing. 

 

Knowing her, Fujisaki thinks that maybe she did. She always has so much to say, and it’s always so important that it can’t be interrupted by something like breathing. 

 

Fujisaki has important things to say, too, though. “K-Kiri? Can we j-just lay down for a bit?” 

 

She nods and draws Fujisaki towards her as she reclines on the couch, so that they’re laying down, their back to her chest, and she pulls a slightly weighted blanket off the back of the couch on top of the both of them. It’s well-known between them that Fujisaki feels comforted by physical pressure, so Kirigiri bought the blanket as soon as she knew she’d be in her own place. (Her boyfriend’s luck is really impressive. And the fact that she’s the principal’s daughter probably gave the board a little nudge to give the four freshmen separate on-campus housing. The junior class never stops complaining, but not to her face. Never to her face.) 

 

The two of them stay like this for a few more hours, Fujisaki’s tea forgotten on the coffee table as they drift off to sleep in their best friend’s arms. She’s compact, mostly skin and bones, so it’s not as comfortable as it is to snuggle with someone like Naegi, but they aren’t complaining when she’s so warm and smells like old books and leather and French vanilla. 

 

They think about her words a little more when they hear her breathing even out, a sure sign that she’s asleep. Maybe they won’t figure this out right away. They’ll definitely still miss their papa, and they won’t be having friendly conversation with Mondo anytime soon. 

 

But they’ll think about him every day, and maybe in a few weeks they’ll wave at her if they pass her on campus. 

  
And someday, maybe not soon, but eventually, Chihiro Fujisaki will heal.


End file.
